Official Eorzea Census 2016

[Pintsized]

Assuming the unofficial census's lodestone parse of ~357,000 currently active level 60 characters is accurate, that's a ~5.5% clear rate as of now.

In line with other games where the elite content is only played by a very small minority of players but consumes a disproportionate amount of development resources.

[Acidblood]

In line with other games where the elite content is only played by a very small minority of players but consumes a disproportionate amount of development resources.

Not really, at least not at the moment, as the savage mode is just an extension of normal (which would have much higher clear rates). Also, it's nice to have (optional) content that does offer a significant challenge should you want it.

That said, I am a bit worried about savage mode come 4.0, which is supposedly going to be getting it's own bits of story. Not only does that increase the dev time, but it locks lore behind content that only few % can / will (/ should) ever clear... and that was the issue non-raiders had with raids in early WoW, which of course lead to endless calls for an 'easy mode', and we all know how that turned out #LFR. Not a good road to go down.